So here it is.... an E30 M3 for me!

[G FORCE]

Welcome to the club and keep us updated with the project!

[BSS]

Thanks for the comments guys. :)



Yesterday saw the start of work on the car to get it back on the road for the first time in 5 years!!

Replaced all the discs, pads, parking brake shoes and fittings, new goodrige braided hoses and bled through with ATE super blue fluid, front pads were these...





BMW Motorsport group N front pads which are pagid RS. These coupled with the braided hoses and super blue fluid should be ample enough for light track use and the impending ring trip.



Ample pile of parts. Coolant, Engine, box and diff oils changed as well as all filters and spark plugs, replaced all the fuel hoses as well.
Going through the car checking various things has been quite surprising as several things I thought that would be either not working or trouble removing have been ok. Even the washer jets were clear!
All the metal brake pipes came undone ok and were not badly corroded with the ones on the trailing arms and above the rear axle being replacements. All were liberally coated in waxoil.



The electric cooling fan i expected to be seized as this is quite common but it was free and also a replacement as its the later plastic type one. Both speeds also worked so the resisitor is fine, another common thing to fail in old age.




So after all the brake and servicing work followed by some checks it was run up to temp, fan cutting in and maintaining perfect temp just below half way on the gauge it was time to take it for a run! A short 3 mile jouney to the local petrol station to start to bed the pads in and see how the car ran and again pleasantly surprised to find that no knocks squeaks or rattles, or steering pull.
Engine pulled well with no hesitation or misfires, idles bang on as well.

Chuffed to say the least!

It certainly feels strong for a 195 car which has got me curious but until I've done the valve clearances later this week and oil pressure and compression tests I'm not going to push it.

On to less important things but annoying details none the less!



The car also had a very nice conditon all in one leather "mushroom" type knob fitted which must be a replacement as its far to nice to be the original 174k mile one. Only thing that was letting it down was the BMW roundel so that had to go!



Much better!

Whilst clearing out some rubbish from the car this was found, fitting for a car of this period! :)





This offensive looking stereo and digital clock with screen bleed were letting the side down so they had to be sorted!



A few 6 button OBC's were cannibalised to make a good working one and a slightly less offensive looking stereo but with the all important aux in was fitted for the time being untill a "proper" period system is fitted.





These 27 year old pioneer speakers had seen better days so were skipped and replaced with some more recent pioneers again as a temp install.

I decided to take the car home on trade plates to put some more miles on it and have now done about 50 odd miles and so far so good thankfully! Everything works as it should, even the Si board with the only issue being the coolant warning light on the check control panel so a new sensor will be needed.

And now the money shot!



Crispy bulk head action! I'm not too bothered about this as when my front foot well sections arrive from California my tame welder will sorting this as well as doing the front floor repairs.

MOT tomorrow!

[BSS]

Just insured it. £204 fully comp for me and the Mrs with agreed valuation of £15k and cat C/D salvage retention! Very Happy

Limited to 7000 miles though but as use other cars throughout the year I won't even get near that.

MOT is now booked for Saturday.

[thatphysicsguy]

Great news, glad to see a car like this ended up in caring and competent hands!

[613EDRTY]

Looking good man, I guess m3's didn't come with euro clock. It seems to hide the rust quite nicely it looks great in the shot from the petrol station.

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Awesome m3 man. Great project.

[E30Kop]

What a car to be proud of

I would give anything to own one of those, but sadly they never reached South Africa

[SteadyAim.]

Congrats!

[BSS]

Thanks guys.

So this week a had the mirrors painted up as the visually astute will have noticed that one mirror was black and the other was tatty, a bit like the rest of the car!



Turns out they are heated and also the washer jets and drivers door lock. I guess the "winter pack" was standard on UK spec E30 M3's as its not on the spec sheet from BMW and I doubt its been retro fitted.

Either way bonus!





So yesterday I whipped the cam cover off for a peek and to check the valve clearances which were all within spec at .28mm or .30mm. It also appeared to be pretty clean in there and from what I can gather its had a timing chain job done on it.



Cam sprockets looked to be in good shape and I removed and inspected the top guide rail which had barely any ware which again goes some way to back up the chain replacement. It's also got an S50 tensioner fitted.



So after that it was time for it's first MOT test since jan 2009, having only covered 300 odd miles since then!

It passed with a couple of advisories, for an engine oil leak which appears to be lower sump gasket and corrosion within a prescribed area which was the poorly repaired front floor sections.



So it's taxed, mot'd and back on the road for the first time in 5 years. A B road blast was the well over due so I enjoyed what these cars are all about this morning!

[BSS]

So I left the car with a mate for a couple of days to see if he could tidy it up a bit and make it more presentable untill the bare shell resto happens.

Taken from another forum.

Delivering the old turd back to him tonight. I'll let you guys see it before he does :twisted:

As stated, it had been sitting about for some time. It was pretty dire as these typical shots show:













So fist off was a pressure wash to sort out the urgent areas. Using a fairly strong TFR mix, the drive went white! The paint was so dead it literally was coming of as watered down dust.



The shite was blasted away which left us with:







I then hit it with the clay bar and that went white also and picked up shed loads of contaminate!



Followed by a quick machine polish and a wax with AG SRP. As Barry says it's going to get the works and as we know polishing a turd is hard work so it really was a quick tidy up to make it a nicer car to use and easier to wash down on a weekly basis. As I was going round I touched in any obvious scratches and chips to take your eye away from them. But overall I reckon it was well worth it. Lets see what he thinks tonight. I does finally have a good shine which is what was aimed for.











I love white but it's a bastard to photograph!

[BSS]

While the sun was out I popped out to a spot up the road from work on the Ashdown Forrest to take a few snaps.

[abit]

white like snow :D
clean, and looks good

[BSS]

So I've now covered approx 1000 miles in it and it's been rock solid until yesterday when it failed to start after an hours drive. A hard tap on the starter motor and it span into life so a new starter motor is in order.

With the ring trip looming ever closer and I thought it prudent to check the health of the engine a bit more than a visual inspection of the top end.



First thing was an oil pressure test so after a run to get the engine up to temp I took a reading. Bmw specify 7-28 psi at idle and 57-85 psi at Max rpm. We as you can see in the pic above it was just over 80 psi at approx 5500 rpm and did not climb higher than that with any more rpm so pretty much perfect oil pressure! Happy days!



Next up a compression test resulted in a pretty even 160-170 psi across all four cylinders and going on BMW's specified data which is 10-11 bar minimum (145-159 psi), it within spec. Now from what I've read of other people's S14 compression tests, some seem to be getting up to and over 180 psi but I guess given the high mileage it's not too bad and most important of all, heathy enough to take on track without fear of it grenading itself. I hope!



These bare tail pipes were letting the side down so as a reward for not being a tired old nail of an S14 it got a pair of oem shaddow line tail pipe trims.



Much better!



And to end, although proving to be pretty awesome at stopping, these BMW Motorsport group N front pads give off a ridiculous amount of dust!

Oh, and after checking the VIN number, it turns out my car is one of the first 5000 built to homologate the car for motorsport use!

[e30onBBSs]

Sweet m3! The new pipes look so sleek. Do you have any driving videos?

[BSS]

A minor update but the car was in need of some new rubber as the bridgestones were finished on the rear and starting to perrish on the front so a set of continental sport contact 2's in the correct 225/45/16 were ordered up.
Tyre availability in this size is now becoming very limited with choice now limited to these, some toyos, falkens or budget rubbish.
Luckily the conti's are a great tyre with awesome dry grip, good wet grip and reasonable wear rates. I had a set on my 325i with staggered alpinas as well as driving all sorts of other cars with them and rate them highly.



A stroke of luck came my way in that someone had a freshly lessons refurbished 16" BBS in sport Evo style of Nagaro centre and silver lip but was going to have them redone in Ceccotto style like mine were. Now i always intended to have mine refurbed to either silver or nagaro centred at some point as I was not keen on the black so by a stroke of luck, I swapped mine which needed a refurb for the freshly done ones in Nagaro!

£260 worth of refurb gratis, winner! :D

So new rubber on like new Sport Evo wheels topped of with some new genuine roundels.



Much better! :D